Rada

After the personal name (Rada Dany) of a prominent local family.

Rada

1. An unincorporated community in West Virginia

Apparently a local form of Arada (now Allada), a city in ancient Dahomey.

Rada (uncountable)

1. In Haitian voodoo, a class of loa of Dahomeyan origin, chiefly associated with warmth and benevolence.
   • 1953, Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen, McPherson & Company 2004, p. 60:

     The majority of the deities are Dahomean and the rites of these are called Rada, from the town Allada.

   • 1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, p. 49:

     In Haiti, the Rada have come to represent the emotional stability and warmth of Africa, the hearth of the nation.

   • 2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books 2007, p. 31:

     Most books on Vodou have concentrated largely on the Rada pantheon.

   • 2012, Mambo Chita Tann, Haitian Vodou, p. 95:

     We associate the Rada Lwa with the color white and with a sense of purity and formality. Because of this, anthropologists and non-Haitians often described the Rada as the “good ancestral Lwa,” while the spirits of the Petro nation of Lwa were considered “evil,” or invented by slaves in Haiti, though this is extremely oversimplified.

Alternative forms.

Rada

1. Alternative letter-case form of rada

• ADAR, Adar, Dara, Draa, Drâa, Raad, arad, raad