Ant Hill Kids (cont.)
The self-proclaimed prophet, who now went under the name Moïse (the French for Moses), quickly went from motivational leader to a totalitarian cult leader. He claimed that God had warned him that the apocalypse would come in February 1979 and used his members to prepare for the coming cataclysm by moving them to a place he called “Eternal Mountain” in Saint-Jogues.
There he would use his followers to build a settlement as he relaxed, comparing them to ants working in an anthill, so he decided to call his group the ‘Ant Hill Kids’. Increasingly, his behavior became belligerent, abusive and erratic with severe punishments being dished out for any perceived straying from the teachings of Thériault, by Thériault himself. Hitting them with a belt or hammer, suspending them from the ceiling and even plucking each of their body hairs individually. Bizarrely, no one questioned his methods or motives as he was still perceived as a divine prophet and a holy being.
He would marry and impregnate all of the women, fathering over 20 children with 9 female members of the group. However, when his predicted apocalypse failed to arrive in February 1979, many of his followers began to question his self professed divinity. This is when Thériault’s sadistic tyranny would shift into overdrive. Making some followers break their own legs with a sledgehammer, making them sit on lit stoves and even nailed children to trees.
