Zion’s original name, ‘Mukuntuweap,’ comes from which Indigenous people’s language?
A Paiute
B Apache
C Navajo
Explorer John Wesley Powell named the canyon ‘Mukuntuweap’ in honor of the Southern Paiute people who had lived in the region for centuries. The Paiute word was thought to mean ‘straight canyon’ or ‘straight river.’ President William Howard Taft named the area Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909. But the acting director of the National Park Service, Horace Albright, thought ‘Mukuntuweap’ was too difficult for most Americans to pronounce and spell, so in 1918 he renamed it Zion National Monument, adopting the name that some local Mormons called the canyon.
The correct answer is Paiute.