The paper is based on author's fieldwork about the peaceful human-crocodile relationship in the village of Bazoule, Burkina Faso. It starts with a rich ethnographical material covering daily practices, rituals, beliefs and semiotics, and draws a parallel with Eduardo Kohn's ethnographical material gathered in Avila, Upper Amazon. The second part analyses how the specific geographical and hydrological conditions, the social habits of crocodiles as well as the mythology of Mossi ethnical group have all together lead to the emergence and perpetuation of this peculiar human-animal relationship. The last part focuses on the role of "spirit" in this human-animal entanglement, trying to bridge between the naturalistic and the animist descriptions of this relationship and further proposing a framework of describing trans-material entities while avoiding aprioric assumptions of their nature.