When you click on her, does it say "Esteemed Elder" in her job box?

Yes, it did, and now her grave says it, too.

Hmmmm... strange, indeed.

I just had my 4th villager turn into an elder and no new totem showed up. Looked everywhere, this might be a glich.

He wasn't by any chance fishing at the time? Some people have found their totems, literally out to sea

I found one in the creek between the carved wall and the farm plot.

I have looked everywhere, no totem. Maybe it is a special invisible one, lol.

I had a very strange situation similar to this - I was watching my builder (Shuka, age 61), and she changed to an Esteemed Elder and her totem popped onscreen for a split-second and disappeared! (I've noticed that the totem usually appears at the same spot the villager is at the moment they become an elder.) -- at the SAME moment, a dead body appeared over by the fire. I wanted to change my Elder's clothing right away (I give all the Elders the long white robes to distinguish them), so I did that, then I went looking for the totem. Couldn't find it anywhere. Finally clicked on the bones to see who had died, and it was that villager!! (Shuka, age 61)

Frantically I went looking for her, found her, checked the details, yep, it was the same villager! So she is dead, has the most recent tombstone, and yet is a living Elder, and doesn't have a totem! What is going on??

Ok, so I put the game on pause, and exited it, and copied off the logfile - searched through it, and only found one death - a villager by the name of Hong died of old age - but the only Hong I had in my village is a child. I think one of my older villagers died, but not Shuka, as she is still alive & well... but I have no idea who actually died, since I have over 70 villagers now and it's hard to keep track of them all. Oh well! I'm still diappointed that Shuka doesn't have a totem though.