The Gitxaaà Âa , are located on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, and inhabit the village of Lax Klan. Gitxaaà Âa donâÂÂt refer to themselves as .
Stories recording this encounter tell of the acquisition of the hereditary name Heel by the Gispwudwada House (extended matrilineal family) of , from an English ship's captain.
In the more recent period, one holder of the name Heel also assumed rights over the Gispwudwada chief name Seeks, which represents another Gitxaaà Âa Gispwudwada house group.
One holder of the title was Joshua Ts'ibasaa, who died in 1936. The anthropologist Viola Garfield has published a detailed description of his mortuary potlatch.
Garfield also describes the House of 's genealogical merging with another Gispwudwada house group, the house of Nisweexs in the Ginadoiks tribe of at Lax Kw'alaams (Port Simpson), B.C.
A large amount of information on the hereditary names, territories, and oral traditions of the Gitxaaà Âa people was collected in 1916 by William Beynon, a chief and translator in the employ of the ethnologist Marius Barbeau.
The Gitxaaà Âa people primarily live in , their main winter (and now permanent) village, and is a large and thriving community. Currently, most community members live away from the village, in 1983, the population of Lax Klan in 1983 was 493, while the band population was 1005. In 2006 the population of Lax Klan was 415.
It has temporarily suspended treaty negotiations with the British Columbia government.
Other Gitxaaà Âa house-groups include: