The Gadabas are one of the Scheduled Tribes of India. They live primarily in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
There are approximately 67,000 Gadabas. They are involved in both slash and burn and plow cultivation. They live in permanent villages.
They are well known for their tribal dance, the Dhimsa.
They practice Shamanistic rituals and still erect menhirs (monoliths) as commemorative symbols for the deceased from the megalithic tradition [1].
The Gadabas speak Austroasiatic and Dravidian languages. (See Gadaba language (disambiguation).)
Since the early 1980s the Gadabas have largely been displaced from their villages by the building of hydro-electrict dams and the resulting lakes.