In another thread someone suggested pausing the game, getting everyone to the robe, taking the game off pause and trying that way so they're all in that area at least.

The very first villager I put on the robe turned out to be the chief - a four year old girl! She's adorable, running around, telling people what to do, but still taking sandcastle breaks and time to dance!

MY Chief turn out to be a 3 year old girl,so make sure you check everyone.

There might be a few reasons:

1)Your nursing mom is the chief.
2)The baby(who is wrapped with some white cloth)is the chief.
3)You missed out one of your villagers,especially those fishing,its hard to see them.
4)_bug_ :X

Yes, indeed! I have a chief in one of my games that is only three years old. And, another thing that is great is that chiefs of any age will gather firewood, stand on the lift, and other small tasks, even though they don't do any real work.

I have to share this though, I had my child chief stand on the lift until a seed dropped down to be planted. When I placed the child chief on the seed to plant it -- he would not do so, instead he took off running and the action caption read, "Looking for mommy!" I just found that adorable, really...not sure why that happened, but I thought it was cute!