Gadaba

Gadaba or Gutub is a Mundari language spoken by the Gadaba, a Scheduled
Tribe living in the Agency Area of north coastal Andhra Pradesh.
They call themselves ‘Mogililu’ or ‘Modililu’ in their own dialect
in the Srikakulam District. The Gadaba were formerly employed as
palanquin-bearers.

This tribe owes its name to the fact that its ancestors emigrated
from the banks of the Gadabari (Godavari) river, and settled at Nandapur,
the former capital of the Rajas of Jeypore. Some evidence say that they
can be called Kadava, as in Tamil, because of their prominent earrings –
Kadu in Tamil meaning ear. It may be more proper to derive their name from
the three Sanskrit gatvara, which in Oriya means locomotive and
palanquin-bearers may deserve the adjective ‘gatvara’. Another
derivation may be from the Sanskrit kadavada, which means speaking
indistinctly. There is no more indistinct speech than that of the Gadaba,
for their words are rarely heard. Kadavada also means vile or contemptible.

The Gadaba are distributed in the Agency Area of Visakhapatnam,
Vizanagaram and Srikakulam districts and in certain agency tracts of
Koraput and Ganjam districts of Orissa. According to the 1971 Census
the total population of the Gadaba was 25,108. In the State of Jeypore
they are the only representative of the Munda speaking people and they
are “now a small occupational group of palanquin-bearers, living east
of Jagadalpur.”

There is a low level of literacy among the Gadaba, and their language
is rarely written.