According to an Akan folktale, diseases spread among humankind because of jealousy and competition between Nyahkonpon the sky god and Ananse the trickster god:

Now there lived, Kwaku Ananse, the spider, and he went, to Nyankonpon, the sky-god, and said, "Grandsire, take your sheep called Kra Kwame, the one which you keep to sacrifice to your soul on a Saturday, and let me kill and eat it, that I may go and bring you a beautiful girl in exchange."

The sky-god gave him the sheep, and Ananse set but and returned to his village and killed the sheep and ate it. The spider then went to a certain village. In that village there was not a single male—all were women. Ananse married them all and he and they lived there.

One day, a hunter came and saw them...