diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/python/SerDeUtil.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/python/SerDeUtil.scala
index efc9009c088a8..fc3be56205758 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/python/SerDeUtil.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/python/SerDeUtil.scala
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@
 
 package org.apache.spark.api.python
 
+import java.nio.ByteOrder
+
 import scala.collection.JavaConversions._
 import scala.util.Failure
 import scala.util.Try
@@ -28,6 +30,56 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 
 /** Utilities for serialization / deserialization between Python and Java, using Pickle. */
 private[python] object SerDeUtil extends Logging {
+  // Unpickle array.array generated by Python 2.6
+  class ArrayConstructor extends net.razorvine.pickle.objects.ArrayConstructor {
+    //  /* Description of types */
+    //  static struct arraydescr descriptors[] = {
+    //    {'c', sizeof(char), c_getitem, c_setitem},
+    //    {'b', sizeof(char), b_getitem, b_setitem},
+    //    {'B', sizeof(char), BB_getitem, BB_setitem},
+    //    #ifdef Py_USING_UNICODE
+    //      {'u', sizeof(Py_UNICODE), u_getitem, u_setitem},
+    //    #endif
+    //    {'h', sizeof(short), h_getitem, h_setitem},
+    //    {'H', sizeof(short), HH_getitem, HH_setitem},
+    //    {'i', sizeof(int), i_getitem, i_setitem},
+    //    {'I', sizeof(int), II_getitem, II_setitem},
+    //    {'l', sizeof(long), l_getitem, l_setitem},
+    //    {'L', sizeof(long), LL_getitem, LL_setitem},
+    //    {'f', sizeof(float), f_getitem, f_setitem},
+    //    {'d', sizeof(double), d_getitem, d_setitem},
+    //    {'\0', 0, 0, 0} /* Sentinel */
+    //  };
+    // TODO: support Py_UNICODE with 2 bytes
+    // FIXME: unpickle array of float is wrong in Pyrolite, so we reverse the
+    // machine code for float/double here to work arround it.
+    // we should fix this after Pyrolite fix them
+    val machineCodes: Map[Char, Int] = if (ByteOrder.nativeOrder().equals(ByteOrder.BIG_ENDIAN)) {
+      Map('c' -> 1, 'B' -> 0, 'b' -> 1, 'H' -> 3, 'h' -> 5, 'I' -> 7, 'i' -> 9,
+        'L' -> 11, 'l' -> 13, 'f' -> 14, 'd' -> 16, 'u' -> 21
+      )
+    } else {
+      Map('c' -> 1, 'B' -> 0, 'b' -> 1, 'H' -> 2, 'h' -> 4, 'I' -> 6, 'i' -> 8,
+        'L' -> 10, 'l' -> 12, 'f' -> 15, 'd' -> 17, 'u' -> 20
+      )
+    }
+    override def construct(args: Array[Object]): Object = {
+      if (args.length == 1) {
+        construct(args ++ Array(""))
+      } else if (args.length == 2 && args(1).isInstanceOf[String]) {
+        val typecode = args(0).asInstanceOf[String].charAt(0)
+        val data: String = args(1).asInstanceOf[String]
+        println(typecode, machineCodes(typecode), data.length, data.toList)
+        construct(typecode, machineCodes(typecode), data.getBytes("ISO-8859-1"))
+      } else {
+        super.construct(args)
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
+  def initialize() = {
+    Unpickler.registerConstructor("array", "array", new ArrayConstructor())
+  }
 
   private def checkPickle(t: (Any, Any)): (Boolean, Boolean) = {
     val pickle = new Pickler
diff --git a/python/pyspark/context.py b/python/pyspark/context.py
index 84bc0a3b7ccd0..c732703e00332 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/context.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/context.py
@@ -214,6 +214,7 @@ def _ensure_initialized(cls, instance=None, gateway=None):
                 SparkContext._gateway = gateway or launch_gateway()
                 SparkContext._jvm = SparkContext._gateway.jvm
                 SparkContext._writeToFile = SparkContext._jvm.PythonRDD.writeToFile
+                SparkContext._jvm.SerDeUtil.initialize()
 
             if instance:
                 if (SparkContext._active_spark_context and
diff --git a/python/pyspark/tests.py b/python/pyspark/tests.py
index bb84ebe72cb24..a7b4b69f7b6d1 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/tests.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/tests.py
@@ -861,7 +861,6 @@ def test_oldhadoop(self):
             conf=input_conf).collect())
         self.assertEqual(old_dataset, dict_data)
 
-    @unittest.skipIf(sys.version_info[:2] <= (2, 6), "Skipped on 2.6 until SPARK-2951 is fixed")
     def test_newhadoop(self):
         basepath = self.tempdir.name
         # use custom ArrayWritable types and converters to handle arrays