... means theres no villagers there anymore. They are dead. You need to send one of your
own villagers as a missionary and impress him/her a little and voila, the village will be
yours. Remember to populate it with some villagers though.

ONe way to repopulate a village that doesn't take a lot of time & effort on your part:
When moving new people in, just move a few. Move in mostly females & immediately make them
Farmer and/or Fishing Disciples. Move in just a very few males & immediately turn them
into Breeders. It won't take long to build a decent population, but you still need to
check occasionally that the population doesn't get too big too fast for village resources.