This illustrated overview has to do with MAST thus the mammary gland plus other meanings including the AMAZING AMAZONS and CALIFORNIA.

MAST has Greek and other roots which imbue this term with three main ideas: breast; fat or food and control or standing. A broader vista emerges from such terms like MASTAX, MAEST, MASTICAR, MORDER, MASLO, MORDA which in Greek, old English, Spanish and Ukrainian convey ideas related to mouth, food, mastication, mandible, chewing, bite, butter or lard and snout. In biology MAST cells are characterized by a cytoplasm with fatty or lipid droplets. MAST and MASTER add to the array a sense of standing and status.

Perhaps the above are emblems of an impending birth.

MAST in the sense of breast is complemented by THEL, THELE, THELOS or Greek for woman, birth and nipple.

THELALGIA means a painful nipple, THELOCIA refers to parthenogenic birth and THELYPTHORIA denotes "corruption of females" from PTHIEIEN for dacay as in PHTHISIS or ptisis as later used to describe tuberculosis.

Demons with abnormal Nipples and Breasts. Human Birth Defects were also blamed on mothers having had intercourse with Demons.

The presence of ATHELIA is a cause of AMASTIA (the breast may not develop), a rather rare type of agenesis and BIRTH DEFECT. More common are infants with POLYTHELIA, which with puberty may evolve into POLYMASTIA. Note that in non-human mammals polymastia is normal. In humans, for the most part, polythelia and polymastia are biologic ATAVISMS of unknown medical significance. An ATAVIC character can be described as "a feature of the past that is foreign to the present".

Only women (GYNOs) develop natural "GYNECOMASTIA" and are cared for by GYNECOLOGISTS. Feminized men may also develop GYNECOMASTIA or abnormally feminized breasts.

Normal women develop Gynecomastia.
Severely feminized males can be called pseudo-hermaphrodites.
True hermaphrodites only exist in mythology.

MASTITIS or breast inflammation are mostly due to infections complicating the LACTation or breast feeding of infants. From this point another path points toward suck, succulent, suckle, nurse, nourish and NUTRITION, NATURE and NURTURE.

Nursing is at the core of caring.

MAST also points to the mythical "galactic or lactic way". For many in India, this is the way of Shiva.

A galactic torrent flowed through Shiva and Juno

MASTECTOMY or resection of a mammary gland is mostly performed to remove NEOPLASTIC tissues characteristic of CANCER, a disorder of considerable GRAVIDITY. PARITY lowers the risk for breast cancer which suggests that this GRAVE disorder is impacted by phenomena occurring in GRAVID women. However, many women end in a GRAVE prematurely because the prevention and cure of cancer of the breast remains poorly understood.

Mast implies standing.

MAST can also denote "to stand". Many women seek SURGICAL help to restore the "standing" and shape of their mammary. Such "plastic" services are given by surgeons who MASTERED "MASTO-PLASTY". MAST is also found in MASTODONT and MASTOID to stress "breast like shapes". MASTODONT REFERS TO A MAMMOTH extinct elephant-like mammal. MASTOID also refers to a bony prominence formed by the pull of the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle on the occipital bone of the skull. The contraction of the muscle approximates the area behind the ear toward the collar bone.

Amazons wore pants and were expert equestrians who nurtured their feminine charms and sported long hair.

In mythology are rooted stories of brave women who were allies of Troy in their war against the Greeks. The name AMAZON for lacking one MAST or breast is rooted in legends that these women underwent a left MASTECTOMY to be better able to handle the bow and arrow. However, ancient Greeks artists portray the Amazons as unmutilated paragons of beauty and stress their feminine charms in full.

Amazons in Grief and Sorrow.

Experts say that AMAZE and AMAZON have distinct roots. Apparently AMAZE relates to MAZE in the sense of "loss of sense". Even if so, it is a fact that the beauty of AMAZONS AMAZED the Greeks. Their heroes Achilles and Pentheus were dazzled by the beauty of Penthesilea and Hippolyta or Antiope. King Cyrus of Persia lost his head to Queen Thomyris.

The amazement with Amazons was perpetuated by chivalric romances. The story about the Amazon CALIFIA in " Amadis de Gaula" was probably the most popular work in the times of Cervantes who wrote commentaries about it. This Amazon queen had an army of GRIFFINS or hybrid birds with beaks of eagles and bodies of lions.

Equestrian Amazons in slacks with Griffins.

It is postulated that Spanish "conquistadores" knew of the story of CALIFIA as did other prominent Spaniards of those times. Experts have proposed that when in 1535 Hernando Cortez was dazzled by the beauty of the west coast of America he named it CALIFORNIA. His companion Juan Paez states in his journal of 1542 "... We came in sight of CALIFORNIA ..." and a map of 1562 applies this name for the region. The same applies to Francisco de Orellana, who encountered fascinating natives living along the banks of an enormous and beautiful river  he named AMAZON.

The history of the AMAZONS starts in mythic times. Their lands were inherited by the Scythians, Sarmatians, Tatars, Turks, Russians, Bolsheviks, the USSR and currently are in Ukraine under the independent Republic of Crimea.

In Ukraine, the Amazons are remembered.

Today, the seal of Sympheropil, the capital of Crimea, sports a GRIFFIN, a mythic animal from whom flow ideas found in GRAPH, GRAFT, GRAPE, GRAFFITI and so on.

The ideas ignited by the fact that Amazons were independent women who preferred death to slavery, who rode horses and wore slacks, an essential garmet for EQUESTRIANS, much before men did, that Amazons emphasized their feminine charms and kept their hair long with disregard to the risks such posed in battle - they were aware that their Greek enemies would try to dismount them by pulling their long hair.

During battles, Greeks took advantage of the long hair of the Amazons to dismount them.

Among the Greeks the admiration for the Amazons was general and included Goddess Diana or Artemis who admired the Amazon queen Camilla. Perhaps, just perhaps, the valor and values of the Amazons prompted the Greeks to represent JUSTICE as a WOMAN standing for EQUITY. Be this as it may, nowadays any woman with the attributes represented by the Amazons would not be someone who would acquiesce to injustice nor represent someone who is an anti-feminist or masculinized female.

Famous amazons: Camilla, Thomyris, Penthesilea or Aethiopia.
Hoppolyte among other amazons who represent valor and freedom.