Mr Metokan was doing his best, but fastening a grass skirt around the waist of a man possessed is no easy task. When taking up temporary residence inside a person, spirits usually like to have a bit of fun. Which means movement, and a lot of it. Manic dancing is a typical upshot of a spirit being summoned to enter a human body. It is standard voodoo procedure and that’s what I’d come to Benin to witness.

Benin is the cradle of voodoo – a religion with a reputation for evil, largely made in Hollywood. Believers trust in the power of nature and a vast array of spirits that preside over earthly affairs. Communicating with the spirits – to seek advice, or simply to make a social call – is an everyday occurrence, best accomplished via possession and trance.

And in this case a wraparound grass skirt was involved, which was proving to be quite a challenge. Mr Metokan had been introduced to me as the medium for the morning’s events. He was a young man with a bare chest and a mass of short horizontal scars running up the outside of each arm, from his wrists up to and across his pectorals. Possession can also involve a degree of self-harm, and this time it wasn’t Mr Metokan who would be adding to his collection of scars but his protégé, a youth who hadn’t been deemed worthy of an introduction. In fact, I’d hardly noticed him until the moment, a few seconds before, when he’d flung himself across the dirt floor and started to writhe around in the doorway to the chapel, shouting in a strange, high-pitched voice.

The congregation paid him little attention but continued clapping and singing, as they’d been doing since the palm wine had done the rounds.

I was sitting with a single extended family, more than a dozen people, many of them children. We were tucked into an adobe hut that took up one side of the small courtyard where the family lived, on the outskirts of the town of Abomey. The hut was a voodoo chapel, containing a shrine or fetish.

Like most fetishes I saw in Benin, it had an aura of decomposition – it was a rotting, waxy, feathery, bloody, knee-high mound that smelt of alcohol. The first shot of palm wine had been poured onto the fetish for the benefit of the spirits. The glass was refilled for each person, who knelt to drink before bowing so low that their forehead touched the ground.

The blood and feathers from a decapitated fowl had been dripped on and around the fetish. Some drops were sprinkled on the ground in the doorway and a few more carefully directed into the glass of palm wine. Mr Metokan had taken a slug and passed it to the head of the household, an elderly gentleman who downed the remainder. Its purpose served, the dead chicken was casually flung out through the door.

MAGIC AND the spirit world are an essential part of everyday life in Benin. Down on the coast, in the town of Ouidah, I’d visited a temple full of pythons (each the manifestation of a spirit) and a sacred forest that was home to a king. Beninois kings have magical powers. Several hundred years ago, this one had turned himself into a tree, but people still come to bring him food and offerings and to ask for advice.

I’d never met a king before, but just days later I managed to meet another. His majesty Dada Hovedogni Behanzin, king of Abomey, was in human form and he lived in a palace. I’d read that he welcomes visits from foreigners whenever he has the time, so I made an appointment.

His majesty looked like a nursery-rhyme king, though without the crown. He was jolly and smiling, with bright, piercing eyes. His royal lineage is traced back to an association between a princess and a leopard. He sat on a large armchair, not unlike one you might have in your front room, surrounded on the floor at his feet by wives and ministers. I joined their ranks and managed to snatch some snippets of conversation with the king, between his consultations with a constant stream of subjects seeking counsel.

These were just a few of his 48 wives, it transpired. A king must have at least 41 partners, one of his ministers told me, because 41 is a supreme number in the voodoo pantheon. (There had been 41 snakes in the python temple.)

The king chuckled when I asked about his magical capabilities. They could be used for all sorts of purposes, he told me: “For example, I can bring rain. If I want to, I can bring it right now, but I rather like the sunshine.”

We all laughed at that. Then he added that his supernatural powers also meant he had no need for policemen or an army. He said this with the faintest hint of menace.

MR METOKAN had finally managed to tie the grass skirt around his protégé’s waist and things were proceeding.

The young man was calmer now that he was properly dressed. Crouching, he set about anointing his face and torso with a paste of maize flour and palm oil. When much of his upper body was bright yellow, he stood up, jerked his head and disappeared through the doorway.

Minutes passed. Members of the congregation, still clapping and singing, also started to wander outside. Mr Metokan left. I followed.

The yellow youth in the grass skirt was swaying beneath a mango tree, muttering to himself. The rhythmic claps gave way to a mesmerising beat on a drum as the lad began to dance.

He jumped and he twisted away from us, rolling his head and flailing his arms. Crouching low and leaping high, he danced manically and with reckless abandon – a glazed expression having taken hold of his face. It was then that I noticed the short knife in his hand. And splotches of red mixed with the bright yellow paste on his upper arms. I thought this was probably a good time for me to slip away.

Nick Middleton travelled as a guest of Steppes Travel (01285 885333, www.steppestravel.co.uk ), which has a 14-day trip to Burkina Faso and Benin from £3,325pp. The price includes flights with Royal Air Maroc via Casablanca, B&B accommodation, and a private guide and driver

Browse travel offers at Times Selects