What is "abada"

Abada \Ab"a*da\ ([a^]b"[.a]*d[.a]), n. [Pg., the female rhinoceros.] The rhinoceros. [Obs.]
--Purchas.

n. (context obsolete English) The rhinoceros.

Äbädä (Tatar: Әбәдә, Azerbaijanese: Əbədə, Turkish: Ebede) is an innocent forest spirit in Tatar mythology. It looks like an old woman. Äbädä also is represented in mythologies of Siberian peoples.

Äbädä is a demon or spirit. He is a Turkic forest being, similar in nature to the İyes. He protects the birds, trees, and animals of the forest; he appears in the shape of a human with blue skin, two great horns, green hair, and a long green beard across his face, carrying a club or whip indicating his mastery of the forest. He can shapeshift into many different forms. As a human, he looks like a peasant with glowing eyes, and his shoes are on backwards. Should one ever encounter an Äbädä, one must thwart him immediately by turning all one's clothes inside out and backwards, and placing one's shoes on the opposite feet.

Abadá can refer to various items of clothing: a white tunic worn by for prayer by African Muslims, the uniform of port workers in Brazil, the pants worn by capoeristas, or a shirt sold at a carnival or theatrical production to promote the event.

__NOTOC__ Abada may refer to:

Abada (or Bada or Ibada, ?-1588) was the name given to a female Indian rhinoceros kept by the Portuguese kings Sebastian I and Henry I from 1577 to 1580 and by Philip II of Spain from about 1580 to 1588. It was the first rhinoceros seen in Europe since the specimen that was sent as a present from the King of Portugal, Manuel I, to Pope Leo X in 1515, which died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516, immortalised as Dürer's Rhinoceros.

Abada was probably meant as a general term for the rhinoceros, as it derives from the Malay word (badak) for the animal and may have been in use in Spain and Portugal from around 1530, but since this was the only example of the species in Europe it served as a proper name as well.

In 1577, the rhinoceros arrived at the port of Lisbon intended for the menagerie of Sebastian I of Portugal, probably as a gift from the viceroys of India. As a safety measure the horn was removed (this later grew back, but seems to have been removed on a regular basis).

Sebastian was succeeded by Henry I the following year. On the death of Henry in 1580, Philip II of Spain claimed the throne, uniting the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, and inherited the rhinoceros which he transferred to the menagerie of Casa de Campo, close to Madrid. On 16 October 1583 Philip transferred Abada once again, this time to the menagerie of El Escorial. The transfer did not take place without incident: one of the keepers decided to refresh the animal by dousing it with buckets of water, but the sudden soaking startled her and, in panic, she knocked down all her attendants. At El Escorial, Abada was put on display to the public and presented to the Japanese ambassadors in November 1584. Juan González de Mendoza mentions it in his book, China, in which he comments that the public were impressed by its thick hide and horn, and that there was speculation as to it being the unicorn of legend.

Philip used her to play a joke on the Hieronymite friars at El Escorial. In the autumn of 1584, he arranged first for an Indian elephant (which he had also inherited from the Portuguese menagerie) to be driven up the steps and into the cells of the friars and the following week repeated the trick with the rhinoceros. While the elephant did not baulk at the strange events, Abada was stubborn and complaining, grunted bad-temperedly and refused to eat the food presented to her. At some point in her captivity she may have been blinded because the attendants had difficulty managing her and it was thought that this would make her less likely to attack them.

Abada appears to have died by 1588: Juan de Arphe y Villafañe included a description and print of a rhinoceros in his manual of decoration published in 1585, based on observations of Abada, rather than Dürer's picture, as it lacks the dorsal horn added by Dürer; she was still alive in 1586 when her image was captured in an engraving by Philippe Galle, and was seen by Pedro Páez the following year, but there is no record of her after 1587. A street in Madrid, Calle de la Abada, close to the Puerta del Sol still bears her name.

In the Kongo language, Abada refers to a mythical animal similar to a unicorn. The abada, however has two crooked horns as opposed to a unicorn's single one. The abada's horns can act as an antidote to poison.

It has been described as being the size of a small donkey with the tail of a boar.

It also goes by the name of Nillekma or Arase. It is said to be native to Kurdufan, a former province of central Sudan.

The French surname Abada traces its origins to a nickname. The surnames which derive from a nickname are numerous and varied. This category of name draws on many different sources. The most common ones are based on a physical characteristic or a personal attribute of the originator. In this case the name Abada was taken directly from the Niçard word Abbe meaning Abbot. Thus the surname Abada originates from someone who worked as an abbot. Amongst the variants of this name we find Abbatte, Abbat, Abbas, Abad and Abate.

French surnames are hereditary, something that came back into fashion in the 12th century. Before this certain names existed and sometimes they were skipped for one, two or three generations. In contrast some names were not inherited because they were eventually abandoned and replaced by another name.

The surname Abada is also found in Italy. Amongst notable people of this name is the Italian painter Andre Abate, born in Naples in 1732.

Notable people with the surname include:

• Omar Abada (b. 1993), Tunisian basketball player
• Patrick Abada (b. 1954), French former pole-vaulter