BUSCALAN, Philippines — She wakes up every morning at dawn and mixes an ink out of pine soot and water. She threads a thorn from a bitter citrus tree into a reed, crouches on a three-inch-high stool and, folded up like a cricket, hand-taps tattoos onto the backs, wrists and chests of people who come to see her from as far away as Mexico and Slovenia.

The woman, Maria Fang-od Oggay, will finish 14 tattoos before lunch — not a bad day’s work for someone said to be 100 years old. Moreover, she has single-handedly kept an ancient tradition alive, and in the process transformed this remote mountaintop village into a mecca for tourists seeking adventure and a piece of history under their skin.

Buscalan, population 742, is a mile hike from the nearest dirt road through foggy forest and centuries-old rice terraces. The stilted huts are made of wood and thatch or galvanized tin and concrete blocks. There is no mobile phone service and little electricity. Black pigs and chickens roam the narrow paths of stone and dirt.

Ms. Fang-od, also spelled Whang-od, is a ritual tattoo artist of the Butbut tribe of the Kalinga ethnic group in the northern Philippines.