Pearl hunting
The surface supplied diving helmet greatly extended the time the diver could stay at depth, and introduced the previously unfamiliar hazards of barotrauma of ascent and decompression sickness.
[citation needed] In order to find enough pearl oysters, free-divers were often forced to descend to depths of over 100 feet on a single breath, exposing them to the dangers of hostile creatures, waves, eye damage, and drowning, often as a result of shallow water blackout on resurfacing.
[citation needed] During the first half of the sixteenth century, Spaniards discovered the extensive pearl oyster beds that existed on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, particularly in the vicinity of Margarita Island.
As this system continued to grow, more and more oyster beds were discovered along the Latin American coast, including near Riohacha on Colombia's Guajira Peninsula.
[5] Oyster harvesting methods remained much the same along the coast and varied depending on the divers' conditions,[clarification needed] the region's topography, and a Spanish master's work demands.
[clarification needed] The shells that they extracted were usually placed in this basket, but for dives of greater depth, the divers also had to wear stones tied to their bodies as they submerged into the ocean.
[clarification needed] The divers would receive a slight break to eat and rest and continue this work until sundown, where they all presented their catch to the foreman, return to the ranchería to have some dinner, and then open the oyster shells.
[6] On Cubagua, another Venezuelan island, the Spaniards used natives as slave labor in their initial attempts to establish a thriving pearl market in this area.
Some scholars have reported that because of the climate in Cubagua, the heat would cause the oysters to open themselves, making the pearl extraction process a bit simpler.
[10] A fragment of Isidore of Charax's Parthian itinerary was preserved in Athenaeus's 3rd-century Sophists at Dinner, recording freediving for pearls around an island in the Persian Gulf.
In fact, pearls from the Sulu Archipelago were considered the "finest of the world" which were found in "high bred" shells in deep, clear, and rapid tidal waters.
[citation needed] Pearl hunting represented a cornerstone of Eastern Arabian economy, serving as a primary source of wealth generation and international trade.
In contrast to the affluent traders of the upper Gulf—such as those in Bahrain and Kuwait—merchants in the lower Gulf frequently experienced cycles of indebtedness due to the unpredictable fluctuations in the pearl market.
This dynamic compelled divers to supplement their income with alternative jobs such as fishing, trading, or other forms of hunting, thereby underlining the precarious nature of a livelihood dependent on pearls.
[14] Market instabilities, marked by dramatic price fluctuations throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, frequently led to cycles of debt for both merchants and divers.
High interest rates on borrowed funds further compounded the financial burdens, leaving many coastal communities vulnerable to economic distress.
In the early twentieth century, it was estimated that about a quarter of the population living in the Persian Gulf's littoral was involved with the pearl trade.
During periods of acute scarcity—such as the nutritional crises of the 1940s—local populations resorted to unconventional sustenance practices like the consumption of dried, salted pearl mollusk meat.
Profit sharing from pearl sales was pre-arranged and distributed according to factors such as crew debt and the captain’s discretion, offering a mechanism for financial and social advancement despite the inherent uncertainties of the industry.
By the 1890s, pearling was the largest industry in the region, and had a huge impact on coastal Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Shells were the main aim for collection, and the whole industry was essentially a colonial one geared to procuring mother-of-pearl for sale to overseas markets for the making of buttons.
"Hookah" gear, tested to 48 fathoms (87 metres) in 1922, was considered unsuitable for the strong tides in these waters, and the later Scuba equipment did not supply enough air to spend the time required underwater and for decompression while surfacing [17] Scotland is home to approximately half of the world's freshwater pearl mussels.
