Mekan people

The Mekan or Me'en are an ethnic minority group inhabiting southwestern Ethiopia. The 1998 census lists them as consisting of 56,585 individuals. In Ethiopia, ethnic communities speaking Nilo-Saharan languages are referred to as "Nilotic", but this is not exactly the same meaning as the Nilotic language family.

The Mekan or Me'en speak the Me'en language, which is a member of the Surmic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The population is subdivided into two groups: the highland Tishena, who are agriculturalists, and the lowland Bodi, who are pastoralists.