Tom Kavanagh said:

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  I especially liked the claim "Vidal gets away with a good deal of
  stereotyping, since his Iroquois aren't 'real', but rather as the curators
  of the 1930s conceived them."

  We all know (1) There never was an Iroquois life group ("diorama") at SI;
  and (2) all of the life groups which were up in the 1930s (and today) were
  made by 1915 at the latest, most in the 1890s.
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Yes, Tom, I actually checked the records on this :-). There was a very small
model of an Iroquois village (not a life group), and a statue depicting
Mary Jemison carrying a baby in a cradleboard.  Those were the only
Iroquois "exhibits" at the Smithsonian, and they were put up before
the 1930's. Maybe Vidal was thinking of the life group of John Smith
trading with the Powhatan Indians???? (which dates to at least 1906).
Or (as we all know happens frequently), he was confusing the Smithsonian's
National Museum of Natural History with the American Museum of Natural
History in New York.