I thought we got the robe back when the chief died, which he did today while I was at work. But the robe wasn't back on the tree.

Since I had enough space in my population I decided to reincarnate him as all my other perfect villagers were over 50. And he reincarnated with the robe on.

I've closed out of the game and I'm about to reopen to see what happens, but I just thought that was weird.