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.