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Transcript: Thomas H. Begay & Nonobah Begay

The Navajo Enemy Way ceremony is approved by the US Veterans Administration for treating post-traumatic stress disorder

[Begay:]
Of course, I had a ceremony because I come from traditional. We have ceremony before you go to war. I have ceremony when I was a young man. Way back, five or six years old, I had the Animal Way Ceremony because my relatives were having it, so they have to use me as, you know, part of the ceremony. Then I went to war, and then came back and had another ceremony.
[Lindberg:]
So is that helpful to you?
[Begay:]
Oh, yes, yeah. It’s— my wife and I have to have, you know—it’s—we had the ceremony in an isolated area. It’s really not the public, but you don’t see a non-Indian out there. Only Navajos and our close relatives. Even missionaries, they don’t— they have a different way of life, you know, they don’t come to a Navajo ceremony.