I have an Esteemed Elder who is Master in 3 areas but when I put that villager by the robe, he tries it on but then it says it doesn't fit!!!

I've tried repeatedly and it won't work....he is fully healthy. I have even tried making him eat a bunch and trying again, but nope, still doesn't fit.

What am I doing wrong?

The game determines who is chief, and it is your job to discover who the chosen chief is by having your villagers try on the robe. The chief can be a child or an adult.

Yep, the robe will only fit one villager from your tribe. Get all the villagers to try on the robe to see which one it will fit.

OH! thanks!!!

Has anyone ever had a point where no chief was chosen from all the tribe members? I'm playing with 110 villages right now and my chief died. I spent an hour patiently going through every single one of my villagers and the robe did not fit any of them.

The chief will be there somewhere. Have you waited until any nursing mothers are free to try on the cape? Failing that the only possibility is that someone was missed. It might help to close the game down, then reopen it and go through the villagers carefully using the details screen. It takes a while sometimes, particularly with a tribe close to the maximum numbers; If I start with the youngest and work towards the oldest, the new chief is bound to be elderly, and vice versa.

try pauseing the game and drag them all to the rope them unpause
thats what i do

That's how I do it also. But what helps me sometimes is when the villagers start moving toward the amphitheater to bury the chief, I let them get very close then pause it. It's just easier for me to not have to go over the whole island.

I may just be getting lucky, but unless the new Chief is a child or nursing mom, I always find them in that group of villagers going to bury the dead.

Again, I'm not sure if this is just luck or not but it may help to give it a try.

Good Luck!

Wow! good idea! Usually the chief is the first to bury the dead, so the "next chief" could be among those!
But if you disturb the villagers who are burying the dead, they will not be buried!! And you will not find them in the cemetery nor in the roster!
I suggest to let them burying then to bring them trying the robe!

Once the villager's skeleton is picked up they will appear on the roster of the dead. A tombstone won't appear until the villager lays the skeleton down in the burial area.

If you have have a long-running game with more than 50 deceased villagers already you won't get a new tombstone anyway. That means you could interrupt the villager on the way to the cemetery if you wanted.