> as lemmas

1774 E. Long Hist. Jamaica II. iii. iii. 416 Not long since, some of these execrable wretches in Jamaica introduced what they called the myal dance, and established a kind of society, into which they invited all they could. The lure hung out was, that every Negroe, initiated into the myal society, would be invulnerable by the white men.

1774 E. Long Hist. Jamaica II. iii. iii. 417 One of these myal men..gave him a wonderful account of the powerful effects produced by the myal infusion.

1793 E. Long in B. Edwards Hist. Brit. Colonies W. Indies II. iv. iii. 89 Obia..is now become in Jamaica the general term to denote those Africans who in that island practise witchcraft or sorcery, comprehending also the class of what are called Myal-men.

1843 J. M. Phillippo Jamaica: Past & Present State 249 (note) The author once saw a negro suffering from a gum-boil, who persisted in affirming that the Myal Doctor had extracted a snake from the affected part.

1851 G. Blyth Reminisc. Missionary Life iv. 175 They became excited and frenzied singing Myall songs.

1861 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Nov. 581/2 There was another class of impostors [besides Obeah men] calling themselves Myall-men, who asserted that they had the power of reanimating dead bodies.

1902 Chambers's Jrnl. Feb. 84/2 The obeah-man is often called upon to exorcise ‘duppies’ driven into a man or woman by a brother of the craft. In former days this used to be the exclusive work of the myal-man.

1929 M. W. Beckwith Black Roadways ix. 155 The instruments which I saw used in the John Canoe performance [were] identical with those accompanying the myal dance.

1961 F. G. Cassidy Jamaica Talk xvi. 380 Another plant with a supposedly magical property is spirit-weed or myal-weed.

1981 Jrnl. Negro Hist. 66 259 In the 1760s the British planter-historian Edward Long was the first European to record the existence of the Myal religion in Jamaica.