Now if we know what part was played by the time of full moon in the festivals of other peoples, and indeed for the agrarian peoples also, in spite of the differences in date resulting from the observation of the time of full moon, it seems always probable that the regulation of post-exilian times for the fifteenth originated in an old tradition in accordance with which the time of full moon was specially favoured for the feast. Earlier the date was not so accurately observed; the time of full moon was prescribed so that those who were prevented from celebrating the Feast of the Passover at the proper time might do so on the fourteenth of the following month[1145]. Unfortunately the date of the passage in I Kings (XII, 32), according to which Jeroboam celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th day of the eighth month, is doubtful; if the passage is old, it affords valuable evidence that the time of full moon was the proper time for holding agrarian festivals[1146]. Among the Greeks all the ancient festivals with the exception of the feasts of Apollo, which always took place on the seventh of the month, were concentrated in the period shortly before and during full moon[1147]. The selection of days is organically connected with the lunar reckoning, and the superstition of days has arisen independently among different peoples. As an example the sacrifices of the Toba Batak of Sumatra may serve. At the felling of a tree for house-building sacrifices must be offered during the waxing moon; this is in general the favourable time, since everything undertaken then increases with the moon. The huntsman sacrifices to his god at noon-tide about the time of new moon, the fisherman at noon while the moon is waxing; before a military expedition a certain sacrifice is offered (preferably in the early morning) at the time of full moon, and another at the waxing moon[1148]. This superstition, which involves the accurate knowledge and observation of the days, and the injunction, to which great religious importance is attached, to celebrate the festivals on the proper days, lead to the result that the time-reckoning, which arose in the first place from the events and necessities of practical life, has among certain peoples passed completely under the influence of religion and has been further developed from ecclesiastical standpoints in the service of the religious cult.