Erik Seidenfaden

Major Erik Seidenfaden (; 1881–1958) was a Danish Captain of The Royal Siamese Gendarmerie who lived in Thailand from 1906 to 1947. He served as part of the Provincial Gendarmerie where his role was to assist with the modernization of the Siamese military. He played an active role in the Siam Society as an amateur ethnologist who authored books and articles on the history, culture and languages of the Thai peoples. Anthropologist Herbert Phillips of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed that Seidenfaden "probably had more first-hand knowledge of the culture and history of the Thai and related peoples than did any other European of this century," whose ethnological interpretations nonetheless amounted to "informed prejudice."

Life Seidenfaden was born in 1881 in Copenhagen, Denmark, rising to the rank of captain in 1907 and to major in 1914.

In April 1907, after Siam was forced by the French to give up on the regions of Battambang, Srisophon and Siemrep in Cambodia, Captain Erik Seidenfaden was put in charge of nine huge convoys moving the Siamese Governor-general Phraya Chhum Abhaiwongse Kathathom (1861–1922) and his belongings out. The Governor-general's extended and very numerous family - the Aphaiwongs were of royal Khmer lineage - included 44 concubines and 50 children. The convoy included 37 elephants, 26 of them carrying the Governor-general's daughters and dancers. The convoy, which travelled 300 kilometres west under constant rains consisted of 1,700 ox carts, of which 1,350 requisitioned from the local farmers of Prachinburi in Siam, their final destination, took three months. Apart from herds of cattle, oxen, sheep and 3 Axis deer, it included a number of Australian horses. Convoy n.2 consisted of 215 ox carts carrying the valuables, including 1.8m silver piastres, equivalent to 18m French Francs or 1.1bn Thai Baht (2012). Apart from the Governor-general's life guard of 40 men, armed with rifles and swords, Seidenfaden had 100 gendarmes with him, many if not most Danish, many suffering from cholera and beriberi, and a gang of robbers was said to be at the heels of the convoy.

In 1914 he became the chief of The Royal Siamese Gendarmerie's officer school. His role, along with that of many imported western officers, was to assist with the modernization of the Siamese military. In particular, he blamed radio for the vanishing of age-old dialects, manners and cultural traditions. He commented that the "honk of the motor lorry with its load of cheap foreign textiles sounds the death knell of the national costumes".

While he was serving as deputy to the Inspector-General of the Royal Siamese Gendarmerie and during the visits to the outlying provinces and gendarmerie stations between 1908 and 1919 Seidenfaden visited and re-discovered a number of archeologically significant Buddhist temples. He learnt local dialects too, and collected knowledge of local customs which was quite extraordinary.

In 1939, he was the first person to study the Lao Ti people, an ethnic group in Ratchaburi Province.

His nephew Gunnar Seidenfaden also had ties to Thailand, where he researched and identified many new Orchid species, naming some too, as well as serving as a Danish ambassador for Bangkok (Thailand) and Manila (Philippines) in 1955, Rangoon (Burma) and Phnom Pehn (Cambodia) in 1956 and Vientiane (Laos) in 1957.

Erik Seidenfaden was awarded the knighthood of the Siamese Crown Order in 1912, in 1926 the order of the Crown of Thailand, in 1932 the Danish knighthood of Dannebrog, as well as knighted with the Siamese Order of the White Elephant.

His extensive library of Thai books was in 2004 donated by his daughter Grethe Seidenfaden (1929–2012) to The Thai Section, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Selected publications Guide to Bangkok, with notes on Siam, 1927 The Thai peoples, 1958 The Thai peoples. Book 1, The origins and habitats of the Thai peoples, with a sketch of their material and spiritual culture, 1958