Noria Mabasa is one of the most popular South African sculptors and, the one and only female woodcarver. She was born on 10 May 1938 in Xigalo in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. In the early 1970's, after a long struggle for economic survival, Noria began making clay sculptures of Domba figures. She explains, "I started because of a dream. It took a very long time, because I didn't understand it well. This was in 1965 and in 1974, I started the work". In 1983, after meeting the Venda sculptor Nelson Makhuba, she was encouraged to venture into woodcarving. Her skill made her the first black woman, and the only Venda woman in South Africa, to become a famous wood carver.