"You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they
didn't shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight. Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.) What is the meaning of the word doctrines as it is used above? beliefs livestock work ethics medicine
Doctrine is defined as a set of beliefs that underlie a system, which can be literary, philosophical, political and religious. Doctrine is always related to discipline, to anything that is object of teaching, and can be propagated in various ways.
In this excerpt, when the character says that he will accept the doctrines of the cattle people, he is saying that he will accept the beliefs of that people.
