Meaning of a sentence from ‘Holiday Romance’

Question

When reading Holiday Romance, I came upon a sentence. I can’t get the meaning of the sentence

Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green colour (the savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain:

Choo a choo a choo tooth.
Muntch, muntch. Nycey!
Choo a choo a choo tooth.
Muntch, muntch. Nycey!

As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the evening hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of ‘For what we are going to receive,’ &c.

Did they sing a hymn without knowing the meaning and the part about the translation, did they know the meaning later or was it for the readers to know. What is meant by ‘What we are going to receive’,&c.

Answer 1

I think the phrase you are asking about is from the traditional 'grace' prayer (which could possibly be in hymn form too, I'm just not familiar with it).

Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty.

'Grace' is a prayer usually said by Christians before eating a meal, so "what we are going to receive" refers to the food they are about to eat. Some denominations say the above words (or a more contemporary version of them) verbatim, but others speak extemporaneously to express thanks.

You haven't included the wider context of your quote, but it sounds like some unexpected events were going to happen, and the writer is suggesting that those saying/singing these words were about to 'receive' something different than expected.

Answer 2

Now you've given the context, it is clear that the narrator's meaning is that their song is a Grace before meals. He is implying that they are intending to eat somebody.

Answer 3

As the so-called "savages" are presumably singing in their own language, presumably they know the meaning of the words that they sing. To what extent they understand the source of the words, or the meanigns that the Europeans attach to those words, the quoted text does not make clear. Missionaries of that period often did attempt to teach the non-European people among whom they worked the meaning of religious texts, not just translate them for rote reputation. But that was not always true, and in any case this is fiction.

As to "What we are going to receive’,&c." this is, as others have already said, the start of one version of the traditional grace before meals. Dickens would have expected his readers to recognize it with all its associations.

By the way I understand that it was also traditional for navy sailors to repeat this just before a broadside was fired at them by an enemy ship, using an ironic twist of "properly grateful" and with a rather different meaning of "receive".