Abstract. – The article concerns the ritual “dance of a corpse” and the transfer of the spirit (bunu) of a deceased kaawo official among the Baatombu people of northern Benin. It shows that mortuary practices observed in that part of West Africa are extremely complex and go beyond the simple framework of an ambivalent relationship between the living and the dead. These funeral rites present a universe of codes, objects, postures, gestures, and speeches consisting of prayers, incantations, supplications. During that ritual process, certain plants are considered as allies of the heir of the deceased in assuming his new function as soothsayer of the village community. [Benin, Baatombu, kaawo, corpse’s dance, heir of the spirits, funeral rites, initiation, divination, materiae medica]