Erik Seidenfaden (ethnologist)

Major Erik Seidenfaden (Thai: อีริค ไซเดนฟาเดน; 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."