"Author John Leland describes an etymology, writing that the term is a modern survival of an English verb—"to dozen"—dating back at least to the fourteenth century and meaning "to stun, stupefy, daze" or "to make insensible, torpid, powerless".[9]" (Wikipedia linked upthread).

Does anyone else find this etymology hard to accept? A fourteenth century English root meaning being applied to an almost exclusively African-descended social ritual?

But it's the only etymology I have found for it. Does anyone have any other ideas where this name came from?