Jeju’s Haenyeo, the Women Who Dive Without Air, Join UNESCO’s Heritage List
On 30 November 2016, in Addis Ababa, UNESCO inscribed the culture of the haenyeo, the women divers of Jeju Island, on its list of intangible heritage. By 2014 nearly all the divers were over fifty.
The culture of the haenyeo, the women divers of Jeju Island, was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 30 November 2016. The decision was taken at the eleventh session of the organisation’s intergovernmental committee, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is the nineteenth Korean entry on the list.
Who the haenyeo are
The haenyeo, literally “sea women”, make their living by diving for shellfish and seaweed off the coast of Jeju, the volcanic island south of the Korean peninsula. They use no breathing apparatus. A diver goes down as far as ten metres or more on a single breath, stays under about a minute, and comes up with abalone, conch, sea urchin, octopus or seaweed, which she puts into a net hung from a float.
On surfacing she lets out her breath in a sharp whistle, the sumbisori, which carries across the water and is the sound most associated with the island’s coast. The work goes on in every season, for up to seven hours a day on some ninety days of the year. Before wetsuits were adopted the divers could stay in the water for an hour at most in winter; with them they work much longer.
The trade made Jeju unusual in Korea: women were the main earners in many households, and in the early 1960s the divers’ catch accounted for about 60 per cent of the island’s fisheries revenue.
What UNESCO recognised
The inscription covers a culture and not just a technique: the free-diving itself, muljil; a ceremony before diving to pray for safety, jamsu-gut; and the songs the divers sing on the boats, haenyeo norae. UNESCO’s description says the culture has contributed to the advancement of women’s status in the community and to environmental sustainability, through eco-friendly methods and the community’s involvement in managing fishing practices. Knowledge is handed down within families, schools, fishing cooperatives, diver associations, the Haenyeo School and the Haenyeo Museum.
The governor of Jeju at the time, Won Hee-ryong, said that at the moment of inscription he had thought of all the mothers of Jeju Island, and promised to protect the island’s natural resources and traditions.
A shrinking community
That is the difficulty. There were more than 23,000 haenyeo in 1965 and about 14,000 five years later, as other work became available and daughters were sent to school and to the mainland. By 2014, 98 per cent of the divers were over fifty. Few young women now take up the trade.
For travellers
Haenyeo can be seen at work from the shore in many of the island’s fishing villages, most often in the morning. They sell their catch, cleaned and sliced, at simple stalls and cooperative restaurants by the harbours. A museum devoted to them stands on the north-east coast of the island, and an annual Jeju Haenyeo Festival celebrates the culture.
Jeju is an hour by air from Seoul. Visitors should keep a respectful distance from divers who are working and ask before taking photographs.
