Tajima was born on 4 August 1900, in Araki, an area of what was then Wan Village, in the westernmost part of Kikaijima Island, Kagoshima prefecture. At some point in her life, she married a man two years older than her. The couple raised seven sons and two daughters, cultivated sugarcane and sesame seeds for decades, and at one point owned a sugar processing factory.

When she was 92 years old, she lost her husband, Tominishi, and lived with her eldest son and his wife, but when she was 102 years old, she entered a nursing home. After entering her nursing home, she was still able to walk with the help of a cane, but a fall resulting in a bone fracture as a centenarian would leave her wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life. When she lived in her home, she loved Amami’s fermented drink called “Miki” and drank it often.

In her later life, she lived in Kikai, located on the same island in the prefecture of Kagoshima. On her 117th birthday in 2017, she had nine children (seven sons and two daughters), 28 grandchildren, 58 great-grandchildren, 64 great-great-grandchildren, and 14 great-great-great-grandchildren. She ate three meals a day consisting of five dishes, including rice porridge and miso soup, mixed in a blender. She would sometimes make dancing gestures when she heard shimauta or shamisen music.

Tajima died from natural causes at a hospital in Kikaijima, Kagoshima, Japan on 21 April 2018, at the age of 117 years, 260 days. She had reportedly been hospitalized since January of the same year.