Early Life and Education
Born near Chinhoyi, (formerly called Sinoia) in what in 1927 was Southern Rhodesia, Joram Mariga was ethnically Shona and spoke Zezuru, a local dialect. He was the son of artistic parents and would often watch his father and elder brothers (Copper and Douglas) at work carving wood; his mother made pottery. Aged eight or nine, he started to carve wood, and at school he joined wood working classes. As a herdboy, his first subject-matter was cattle. Joram attended secondary school in Goromonzi and studied at the Waddilove Institute. He qualified as an agriculturist and was employed by Agritex. His career as a sculptor in stone began in 1957 when he discovered some green Inyanga (Moon) soapstone while he was working in Nyanga. After work, he started to use it to produce utensils and small figures and he is reputed to be the first artist in 20th-century Zimbabwe to use that material.
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