Dene'Tum showcasing his artwork at the annual Holiday Card Sale on the Terrace campus at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art.
"I am fascinated by Dene'Tum's determination to succeed through his culture, his powerful message of being illiterate did not stop his forward momentum to succeed in his life. Dene'Tum has a powerful message of reviving his culture of 'never give up', 'bandages coming off', 'no limit to education regardless of age'. Dene'Tum is leading by a healthy example of walking his truth."
- Algmxaa (Murray Smith), Cultural Support Worker with Indian Residential School Survivors' Society (IRSSS)
DISCLAIMER: The following story discusses topics including residential schools, drug use, and violence, and may affect some readers. Please see the “Processing Emotions” section at the bottom of this story for support resources.
“When they took me away, they took away Dene’Tum. They said I’m no more a savage. They said from now on, your name is Kenneth and you have to listen to us, because you don’t belong to your mom or your dad or your Indian people. From now on, you do what we tell you to do.”
Dene’Tum was just 12 years old when he was taken from his parents and sent to a residential school where he experienced repeated abuse, both physical and emotional. He describes a time when he spoke his language and was punished by being forced to stick his tongue on a swing set outside in the middle of winter until the school teachers came to retrieve him.
At 16, he ran away only to end up in jail after confronting the police officers who were trying to send him back to residential school.
“I tried to commit suicide by those policemen,” he says. “I shot at them all day, but they didn’t shoot me back.”
Dene’Tum describes his subsequent involvement in gangs from a young age. This exposed him to violence which left him battling addiction and added trauma throughout his adult life.
He describes the start of life outside the gangs when he first met his wife.
“I didn’t know how to read and write my whole life, and the only way I got through life was always getting somebody that I trust to write a letter for me. When I met my wife in 1987, she did all my education for me. She filled out my resumes, and she read all the things that I brought home,” he says.
Some years later, at the encouragement of his wife, he saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
When he asked what PTSD was, the psychiatrist said, “‘You've been traumatized, Kenny, since you were a kid. Your soul is catching up to you, that's why you do drugs every day.’”
After attending a treatment program, Dene’Tum’s journey led him to enroll in the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, even though he didn’t know anything about drawing or painting.
When Dene’Tum first started the program in September 2023, he recalls being very shaky, still battling anger and paranoia, and becoming frustrated with the slow process of learning the fundamentals of formline drawing, including mastering the ovoid.
“[My teacher] kept telling me to draw these ovoids. Then one day I got mad and said, ‘What am I doing sitting here drawing ovoids?’ …. The teacher said, ‘You see this ovoid? That’s what you call negative space. This ovoid, there’s nothing in it. I want you to put all your goodness in there. We’re going to teach you all the basics of how to draw [all the crests], but I’m only going to give it to you in parts, and you have to learn it.’”
Dene’Tum kept practising the fundamentals, until he began to find peace in the shapes he was drawing, and that’s when he started drawing art.
He found that he really liked drawing and painting and was encouraged when the teacher said, “‘There’s something in you, Kenny. You’re a natural.’”
“I learned a lot about myself because I went back to Dene’Tum, [as I was] right before they took all this away from me. But now I went back to school voluntarily, I was not forced to go. You see, that's what I liked about it. I wasn't forced to speak English. I wasn’t forced to do anything. And they let me work at my own pace, and that's how I learned more,” he says.
The only thing that still traumatized him was when a teacher walked behind him. “I expected to get hit. I close my eyes and I wait, [and when the teacher asked about it,] I told him, ‘Well, [in residential school] every time a teacher came behind us, he used to hit us in the head. Told us to do our work.’”
When he thinks back on how far he has come, Dene’Tum says he gets sad and angry.
“I get frustrated. I get mad because this is what they took away from me, and all my education, the residential school system took it all away. And they brainwash you and make you forget about [your culture]. So now I figured, with all my art that's happening now, the bandage is coming off. There's more art going to come out of me yet. I'm not done yet.”
Now in his second year at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, Dene’Tum has no plans to stop creating. Second year involves learning more techniques in woodworking, carving, and jewelry making, among other subjects. When asked what he’d like to do when he completes the program, Dene’Tum says that he wants to continue his own learning and teach others what he knows.
“I would like to take a criminology course and work my way into a courthouse, where I can speak up before my own people,” he says. “I want to teach. I want to teach in my own language how to do the art I learned. … I want to get into some kind of a group where other PTSD patients and drug addicts or alcoholics are going to AA and show them that it's never too late to go back to school and get your education, and it's never too late to accomplish a career. It doesn’t matter how old you are.
“Cut your losses and continue on your education and never look back at what you left behind, because that's why you left it behind. And when you start on your education, don't quit. Take breaks, but don't quit or burn yourself out. Pace yourself, but become a master at what you want to do… what you want to do, not what other people want you to do.”
Dene'Tum at eight years old on his family's land, circa 1964.
Dene'Tum prepares for the 2024 Student Exhibition in the Longhouse at Coast Mountain College.
Dene'Tum stands alongside fellow students and introduces himself at the Student Exhibition in April 2024.
Dene'Tum gives himself a hug at the annual Holiday Card Sale in November 2024.
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Processing Emotions
Murray Smith, IRSSS Cultural Support Worker
Call or text: 250-600-4240
Northern BC Crisis Line
1-888-562-1214
Northern BC Youth Crisis Line
Text: 250-564-8336
Call: 1-888-564-8336
Hope for Wellness
1-855-242-3310
www.hopeforwellness.ca
KUU-US Aboriginal Crisis Line
1-800-588-8717
Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS)
24/7 national crisis line: 1-800-721-0066
www.irsss.ca
Legacy of Hope
legacyofhope.ca
Employee and Family Assistance Program (fseap)
www.fseap.ca
Here2Talk
1-877-857-3397
www.here2talk.ca