In Western Australia, Mjöberg became obsessed with the Aboriginal people, and what started off as collecting native flora and fauna for research, soon led to the desecration of sacred burial grounds and the smuggling of human remains back to Sweden.

Spokesman for the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Neil Carter said: "The belief is that once a burial ground has been disturbed, the spirits and the country will not rest until the remains have been brought back.

Eighteen boxes containing bones, believed to include the skeletons of two small children, were sent to the National Museum of Australia for identification before being interred at their traditional lands.

His attitude was representative of the Social Darwinism of the times according to Dr Hallgren, who writes that the popular "Gothic Horror" presentation, and demonising Aborigines was the context and "justification" for Mjöberg's hunting for skeletons.

[10] Mjöberg died in poverty in Stockholm after a long, undiagnosed illness during which he had constant nightmares reflecting his experiences in the Kimberleys, including a sense of being pursued by Aboriginal people and contact with the Wondjina – creation spirits of the Dreamtime.

In the Australian documentary Dark Science, an elder explains that the spirits give intruders a hard time, making them sick, but that Aboriginal people know ways to forestall these effects, and that outsiders do not.