Jim, hello!
Mandinka sabre? Funny, don't you think that's our favorite name game?
Especially when it comes to Africa.
I couldn't find any evidence of what Malinke called this sabre. Here's what he says (translated from French) Gallieni, Commandant «Mission d'exploration du Haut-Niger. Voyage au Soudan Français (Haut-Niger et Pays de Ségou) 1879-1881»:
Page 93
A remarkable construction caught our eye in Solinta. It was a large earthen furnace, roughly cylindrical, widening towards the middle, about three meters high and one meter in circumference. Openings were made at its base and at ground level. This furnace was used for preparing iron, used in the country for making sabers, knives, and primitive tools that we noticed in the hands of the natives. As we were seeing evidence of industrial activity for the first time in the region, we asked the Malinke around us for information; but it was a waste of time; it was good for blacksmiths to work like this.... An honest Malinke could not, without exception, engage in any occupation other than hunting or war.
However, we later learned how the metal was extracted. The ore comes from the nearby mountains where it is found in great abundance. The furnace is equipped with several openings, to which hand-operated bellows pipes are fitted. Another or vent, larger than the others, closed at the beginning of the operation, communicates with a rammed earth excavation, where the future casting will end. When it is a question of preparing a certain quantity of iron, all the blacksmiths of the village set to work at the same time. This working day is also a day of celebration for them. The casting is watered in advance with millet beer (dolo), the workers, excited by copious libations, pile up successively, in superimposed layers, the ore and the coal. The latter is excellent and comes from certain trees, the names of which the natives gave us and showed us samples. The fire is lit, the shouts and songs redouble, and everyone takes to the bellows, blowing until the metal is obtained. The latter is not cast iron; It is an iron similar to that obtained in the Pyrenees by the so-called Catalan method. It is then worked in the forge, as it comes out of the furnace and without any preparation.
Page 292
At Koukouroni, I noticed a Malinke blacksmith. His instruments were very simple; he used, as a hammer, a heavy iron mass and a small anvil placed on the ground. The bellows, crude, consisted of two leather tubes through which the assistant blacksmith presses the air through clay orifices. It is with these rudimentary means that the blacksmiths of the country make the irons of picks and axes that we see in the hands of the natives.
Page 424
The Malinke and Bambara often carry, along with their rifles, sabers whose blades, of varying length and poor quality, are fitted into leather scabbards, made by the country's shoemakers.
These notes prove that Malika did not produce good swords and sabres, and in 1904 these territories became a colony of France.
On page 17 there is an engraving of Guerriers du Oualo, he has a sabre that is well known to us, unfortunately I was not able to find out who the Oualos were.
The Malinke may have received these sabres from the Hausa of Sokoto or Kano.