relative path specs not understood

I'm troubled by a repository in which I can access certain files only  
using the full path specification, but not from within the directory.   
The protocol below should explain this.
I have a hunch this may have to do with certain symlinks (stored in  
the repository), or maybe with renaming.  Any help on debugging this  
would be great.  Perhaps I've just misunderstood something here...

- David


~/ae.git$ git --version
git version 1.6.5.2
~/ae.git$ cd etc
~/ae.git/etc$ git ls-files DISTRIB
DISTRIB
~/ae.git$ cd ..
~/ae.git$ git ls-files -t -- aquamacs/TODO
H aquamacs/TODO
~/ae.git$ cd aquamacs/
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ git ls-files -t -- TODO
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ git ls-files -vmo -- TODO
? TODO
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ git status TODO
error: pathspec 'TODO' did not match any file(s) known to git.
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ git add TODO
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ git status TODO
error: pathspec 'TODO' did not match any file(s) known to git.
~/ae.git/aquamacs$ cd ../lisp/
~/ae.git/lisp$ ls -la aquamacs
lrwxr-xr-x  1 dr  dr  25 Oct  7 22:30 aquamacs -> ../aquamacs/src/site- 
lisp

~/ae.git/.git$ cat config
[core]
         repositoryformatversion = 0
         filemode = true
         bare = false
         logallrefupdates = true
         ignorecase = true
(...)