I worked several times with raffia. It can also be found under the name "bast fibres" in handycraft stores. It is a rather soft material so abrasion is pretty high.
A picture of a sling I made:


A little closeup. In the final sling this section will be covered with wrappings.


It is currently, beside linnen, my favourite material. You can make very nice stuff from it. The range is from very thin to quite sturdy stuff. The biggest advantage is, that you can easily separate the thick strands into thinner fibers. I will post a picture of an elaborate finger ring I made from it.

You can work it in two different ways: wet or dry.
For braiding I prefer it to be dry. This way you get way more tension on it. However the fibers will tend to separate themself while braiding. This is very useful while tapering the sling. You can keep a high braid density while constantly decreasing the size of the braid.

If you want to sew with it or if you want to make wrappings, I work it wet or damp. If the fibers are wet, they are much more resistant and break less easily. When they are wet, they will also keep the form. So it is great for making protective wrappings around the pouch.

As post-processing you can treat it with wax, so that it will get waterproof. As sideeffect it will increase the resistance to abrasion. Also the form of a wrapping is kept better if it is waxed.

If you make a sling out of raffia make the release cord long enough. During my first slinging session I shortened my release cord by 2 cm within two hours. Then I made a better protection for the end. Also the time needed to maintain a raffia sling is, compared to a leather sling, rather high as you will have to constantly replace the protective wrappings around the pouch.

In conclusion it is really great material. Versatile and easy to work with. The main disadvantage is the softness of the material, but if you take the time to work with raw fibers you will happily invest the time needed for maintaining your works.

For more pictures see: http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172017416/3240

Little hollow ball with a red wood pearl inside and a handle.
Raffia, wet worked, single strand technique and round braid. Diameter: 15 mm

You should really try a Camorro sling. It really caters to the loose fiber sling type and I think it'd look pretty beast from Raffia. They tend to have pretty significant mass towards the pouch so it might help with the abrasion thing a little bit.

Or you can just stick with Balearics and leather line the pouch and an inch or 2 on each side.

I made a raffia sling a couple of years ago. http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172017416/1738#1738

Good material.