Traditionally, marriage among the Bagobo is negotiated through the parents of the bride and groom. When an agreement is drawn, the groom undergoes a trial period, during which he stays with and renders service to the family of the bride for a time. When the match is found viable, the parents, along with the datu, determine the value of the dowry, usually made up of several agong, horses, slaves, or even, among wealthy families, a human sacrifice.

However, courtship among other Bagobo communities can also be spontaneous and decided directly between the girl and the boy. If the parents of the girl object, the boy tries to win them over with gifts. Another Bagobo custom is to let the bride and groom meet without restriction and bear a first child before formalizing their marriage through a ceremony.

The taliduma (formal marriage ceremony) consists of several rituals. In the morning is piid k’agong, the bringing and playing of the agong, bought and furnished by the groom as part of the dowry, in the home of the bride’s parents. This is followed by pamalugu (ritual washing or cleansing), during which the officiating priest or priestess prays for the health of the couple as they sit on two flat boulders called gunsad, which jut out of a shallow part of a nearby river. The ritual t’okud ka pahunga (bracing the mountain) is also conducted: Two spears are pointed toward the mountain to prevent illness or disease from “rolling down” to affect the couple. After the tokud wa pahunga, the couple throws their old, shabby garments into the water in a ritual called gantugan, revealing newly woven clothing underneath. The marriage is then solemnized through pagsugpat k’olu, the tying of locks of the newlyweds’ hair to signal their union. Afterwards, there is balabba (drinking of sugarcane liquor), gindaya (singing), sumayo (dancing), and merrymaking in the home of the bride until the morning after the ceremony. At dawn, the agong is again beaten, and there is an exchange of gifts between husband and wife in a ritual called pabulase. The newlyweds then place two white plates with areca nuts and buyo leaves on them under the sloping roof of their house for Tiguiama, the guardian of the home. The officiating priest or priestess is given gifts called ikut, usually consisting of weapons, textiles, or other objects of value.

When a Bagobo is dying, the face and body are rubbed with fragrant leaves as a precaution against the blood spirit buso. Upon death, the body is left on its sickbed and covered with hemp or cotton textile. A damag (death watch) is assigned to watch the body for two days before the burial. The Bagobo used to practice boat-coffin burial. The lid of the coffin of a fallen datu was carved into a crocodile’s head to ward off evil spirits. Ordinary coffins were decorated with strips of red and white cloth arranged into diamonds and zigzags that portrayed a schematic representation of a buaya (crocodile). It is customary for relatives of the deceased to wail at the closing of the coffin as the elderly woman in the family exhorts the spirit of the dead until the coffin is nailed shut. Boiled rice wrapped in banana leaves is placed in a bag that will also be buried with the dead for him to carry in the afterlife. While Catholic influences have caused some Bagobo communities to build graveyards, the customary location for burials was traditionally directly beneath the house of the family of the dead.