The Japanese who killed the Natural Pearl

Mikimito Statue in Toba, Japan: It is the world's birthplace of the cultured pearl industry. In 1893 Mikimoto Kokichi (1858-1954) produced the world's first cultured pearl. His life and work is celebrated on Mikimoto Pearl Island. The Pearl Museum explains how natural and cultured pearls are produced, how they are graded, polished and strung on necklaces or set in jewelry.


For centuries, people have been trying to unlock the secret of nature and duplicate such things as gold, silver, diamonds, ivory, precious stones and other wonders of the natural world. Alchemists old and new have tirelessly tried to recreate valuable inorganic material from scratch and to get...rich.

Pearls of course were no exception and they were at the very top of the luxury items pyramid. A perfect natural pearl was both extremely rare and expensive. The mystical work of a tiny mollusk was extraordinary in producing such natural gems. For centuries diving for pearls was practiced around the globe and entire communities earned their living from that very dangerous but exciting economic activity. Supplying pearls to the very rich was a very viable economic activity in so many parts of the world.

But all this came to an abrupt end starting early 20-th century because of one Japanese entrepreneur. It wasn't until 1916, when Kokichi Mikimoto (1858-1954) patented the art of producing cultured pearls and perfect round pearls. Using a technique developed originally by an inventor called William Sawville-Kent and brought to Japan, Mikimoto successfully cultured whole "Akoya" pearls and founded the modern cultured pearl industry.
He was also the first to market these cultured pearls and triggered the huge "cultured" or "man induced" pearl industry. Today millions of people can afford and have access to a pearl jewelery of very varying qualities because of these new revolutionary production techniques. Consequently, the natural pearl diving, gathering and trade all but died as a non efficient as it was priced out of the market by the consumers at large.
Most of us think of pearls as perfectly round and white. Nature has other ideas and is far more creative in terms of shape and colour!

Few know his name, but Mikimoto single handedly stopped the natural pearl business and the livelihood it provided to so many communities around the globe. Today Mikimoto is also a high end brand name with very chic boutiques in all major capitals of the world. His Pearl Island and museum in Tobi is visited by millions of people. Various pearl trading companies like Mikimoto deal and sell the best pearls but the prices have plummeted across the board as cultured pearls of all sorts and qualities flooded the market drowning the natural pearl. Therefore the mass production has affected in a major way the world supply and the prices.

A cultured pearl ready to be harvested. The technique to produce these pearls were patented by Mikimoto in 1916 and thus practically killed the natural pearl traditions and romance.


Mikimoto was a shrewd innovator and entrepreneur. As mentioned he did not himself unlock the mystery as to why some mollusks produce pearls, but he was the one who put to practical use the discovery: A tiny foreign particles implanted in the oyster will trigger the formation of pearls as a defense mechanism to neutralise the intruding and irritating particle. In short, pearl is the by product of the defense mechanism of the animal to neutralize the foreign element.

Planting a mother-of-pearl nucleus or any foreign particle into the soft membrane of the "oyster" develops the mollusk's natural protective response which is to secrete a conchiolin (soothing brownish substance) and covered by a nacre coating (the lustrous materials of pearls) to destroy the intruder. The longer the period, the thicker the nacre becomes and usually, the deeper the luster.

Virtually all the pearls we see and purchase today are cultured or man-induced pearls. Therefore these pearls are can still be considered "natural" because they are created by mother nature alone, but the process is induced by humans. Naturally the radiography of a natural pearl and a cultured pearl will show the structural differences to varying degrees depending on the foreign implant used to trigger the process.


Natural pearls of different bivalve species have been the symbol of power and wealth throughout the ages. Nature has endowed them with such beautiful qualities that Emperors, Kings, and Queens or Sultans have sought. Natural pearls from the Oyster, Abalone and Scallop are among the rarest.

The Arab Gulf States have become the new Eldorado of the 21-st century. These mega rich mini states from Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain to Oman have economically flourished beyond any one's wildest dreams. Oil was the primary driving force of this concentration of riches. But few realize what these coastal Arab people used to do before the discovery of oil.

The area is pure desert sand with only few scattered palm trees here and there along small oasises. These Arab coastal communities were sedentary with a few domesticated animals and an endless supply of seafood. Some were merchants trading in spices, foodstuff and slaves from the Africa to Indian subcontinent. Others were pearl divers and merchants, mostly selling their precious gems on the Indian markets or to middlemen.


Mikimoto store in Manhattan: Pearls are still luxury items but they are now "cultured" and not considered natural.

Pearl diving and trade were always at the center stage of all economic activity in that region. Using classical Dhow boats and very primitive equipments such as ropes, burlap baskets, ear plugs and nostril clippers for diving, the Arabs and their slaves were a force to be reckoned with! The Arabian pearls had the quality as well as all the mystique and the exoticism that made these pearls even more sought after by the rich, powerful and the famous across the world.

Before the beginning of the 20-th century, the only means of obtaining pearls was by manually gathering very large numbers of pearl oysters (or pearl mussels) from the ocean floor (or lake or river bottoms). The sea animals were then brought to the surface, opened, and the tissues searched for pearls and most thrown away dead. In order to find enough pearl oysters, divers were often forced to descend to depths of over 100 feet on a single breath, exposing them to the dangers of sharks, waves, freezing and of course simply drowning.



Pearl divers in Bahrain with their shaved heads, greased bodies, ropes and baskets ready to descend in search of the perfect natural pearl. The job is extremely hazardous. They risk drowning, freezing, meeting a shark or even their Creator.

Back then divers had only very basic forms of technology to aid their survival at such depths. For example, in some areas, they greased their bodies to conserve heat, put greased cotton in their ears, wore a tortoise-shell clip to close their nostrils, gripped a large object like a rock to descend without the wasteful effort of swimming down and had a wide mouthed basket or net to hold the oysters. At times, the largest pearls belonged by law to the sultan or the tribe's leader, and selling secretly them could result in the death penalty for the seller. However, a slave who discovered an extra-large pearl could sometimes purchase his freedom.

Pearling was not confined just to the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. It used to be a universal activity from the Indian ocean to the Pacific and even to American riverbeds, but the Arabic pearls were regarded as among the cream of the cream. Only pearls from the southern Philippine Sulu archipelago equalled Arabian pearls in fame and value. Sulu is part of the southern rebellious separatist Muslim region of Mindanao, and today cultured pearl farms have also overshadowed the natural pearling traditions.


This tacky looking "Giant Pearl" monument in Qatar commemorates the Persian Gulf's rich pearling history. Statues, monuments and murals honoring the pearling tradition can be found in almost every town in the Gulf states from Kuwait to Bahrain. Pearl was there before oil, lest we forget!

Because of the difficulty of diving and the unpredictable nature of natural pearl growth in pearl oysters, pearls of the time were extremely rare and of varying quality. All this added to the romance of the pearls and the prices were very high.

Modern scuba diving and oxygen masks were not invented by then, but in some areas divers were able to stay under the water for prolonged periods of time since a secure rope was tied around their waists connected to the ship as they breathed through a long curving pipe that led up above the surface of the water. This long breathing tube was strengthened by rings of cheap metals and fastened to a face masks.


The display window of a Mikimoto cultured pearl store in Manhattan.


Today's pearl industry produces high quality pearls by the billions therefore affecting the demand and prices of the natural pearls. Natural Pearl diving still exists today but the art and industry of the natural pearl has all but vanished since Mikimoto. Entire villages in the Gulf states were economically depressed as the pearl natural pearl market demand and prices collapsed. Today a gold and jewelery souk in the Gulf states feels bizarre as natural pearls have almost disappeared in a region that used to be one of its main sources and markets.


The Pearl Diving Festival is an event held annually to remind young Kuwaitis of their forefathers' principal occupation before the discovery of oil. The event is being held under the patronage of the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, my boss when I was working at his Al Jahra Agricultural Supplies firm in Kuwait City from 1987-1989.

Science and innovation have a "habit" of rendering things obsolete. Today we only smile when we think of ancient things such as the telegraph, the typewriter, the horse cart, the oil lantern, the Walkman or the cassette player just to name a few.

In the case of the natural pearl, technology did not render it obsolete as such. A natural pearl is still a gem of high value, but its "harvesting" ceased to be a viable economic activity. The pearl somehow lost its luster with Mikimoto's revolution, but it became a "democratized" gem, as millions of people could afford to buy a cultured necklace or pair of earrings!


© Krikor Tersakian, Montreal, Canada