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Major Erik Seidenfaden (1881–1958) was a Danish ethnologist and anthropologist who researched and authored books, on the history, culture and languages of the Thai peoples. As an expatriate major serving in the Siamese military, Seidenfaden 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. ==Life== Seidenfaden was born in 1881 in Copenhagen, Denmark,〔 the son of civil engineer Frederik Julius Seidenfaden (1839-1899) and Emmy Margrethe Jacobine Philipsen (1852-1920). He took a preliminary exam at Copenhagen university in 1898, but then went on to study farming at Estruplund. Then he joined an army school, and became junior lieutenant in 1903, serving in the infantry. Moving on to officer school, he took the opportunity offered then to move to Thailand (at the time known as Siam) in 1906, joining The Royal Siamese Gendarmerie, the provincial military police force, 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 Chun Apaiwong Kathathom (1861-1922) and his belongings out. The Governor-general's extended and very numerous family 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 Franks 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.〔 He had also married Malé Maria Praivichitr Emdeng (1892-1973), with whom he had several children. In 1920 he demobilized and became chief of the accounting department of the Thai Electric Corporation Ltd., where he remained until 1941, retiring in Bangkok. Only in 1947 he returned with his family to Denmark, settling in Frederiksdal by Lyngby, north of the capital. In 1927 Seidenfaden wrote a ''Guide to Bangkok'' for the Royal State Railway Department.,〔〔 which was reprinted several times, including in 1984 by Oxford University Press, as this work has become a standard work describing many of Thailand's buddhist temples. His older brother of Aage Valdemar Seidenfaden (1877-1966) had gone on to become chief constable of Copenhagen. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Erik Seidenfaden (ethnologist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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