Hi Jim,
I don't blame you for thinking of eastern swords.
I can't recall a Sahel weapon I've seen before with rayskin. However from the wikipedia article it appears the Niger stingray is fished heavily and eaten. So I imagine an ample supply of skin was/is available.
The two types of stingray found in fresh water in Africa are both in Western Africa, nothing in Lake Chad.
Unfortunately besides the wikipedia articles I could turn up almost nothing on Google and absolutely nothing weapon related.
An anomaly perhaps, but the resource to get the ray skin certainly seems to be in place. Interestingly the Wikipedia article notes that the Hausa know it as the 'water scorpion'. I wonder if any tribes in the area associated animistic or totemic values to the ray?
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