diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 6d5013887d..71fcd95b8b 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -130,6 +130,9 @@ Release 2.0.1-alpha - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-4002. MultiFileWordCount job fails if the input path is not
     from default file system. (Bhallamudi Venkata Siva Kamesh via todd)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-4274 MapOutputBuffer should use native byte order for kvmeta.
+    (todd via bobby)
+
 Release 2.0.0-alpha - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/MapTask.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/MapTask.java
index f83c07e0e0..1232645ca6 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/MapTask.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/MapTask.java
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.OutputStream;
 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
+import java.nio.ByteOrder;
 import java.nio.IntBuffer;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -911,7 +912,9 @@ public MapOutputBuffer(TaskUmbilicalProtocol umbilical, JobConf job,
       maxMemUsage -= maxMemUsage % METASIZE;
       kvbuffer = new byte[maxMemUsage];
       bufvoid = kvbuffer.length;
-      kvmeta = ByteBuffer.wrap(kvbuffer).asIntBuffer();
+      kvmeta = ByteBuffer.wrap(kvbuffer)
+         .order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder())
+         .asIntBuffer();
       setEquator(0);
       bufstart = bufend = bufindex = equator;
       kvstart = kvend = kvindex;