diff --git a/lisp/gnus/ChangeLog b/lisp/gnus/ChangeLog
index 809a92725106..f4910f4fa94d 100644
--- a/lisp/gnus/ChangeLog
+++ b/lisp/gnus/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2011-01-12  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+	* message.el (message-mail): A compose-mail function should
+	accept headers as strings.
+
 2010-11-19  Yuri Karaban  <tech@askold.net>  (tiny change)
 
 	* pop3.el (pop3-open-server): Read server greeting before starting TLS
@@ -13920,4 +13925,3 @@ See ChangeLog.2 for earlier changes.
 ;; add-log-time-zone-rule: t
 ;; End:
 
-;;; arch-tag: 3f33a3e7-090d-492b-bedd-02a1417d32b4
diff --git a/lisp/gnus/message.el b/lisp/gnus/message.el
index 867798f9dcb9..0ea0df460607 100644
--- a/lisp/gnus/message.el
+++ b/lisp/gnus/message.el
@@ -6493,7 +6493,13 @@ is a function used to switch to and display the mail buffer."
     (message-setup
      (nconc
       `((To . ,(or to "")) (Subject . ,(or subject "")))
-      (when other-headers other-headers))
+      ;; C-h f compose-mail says that headers should be specified as
+      ;; (string . value); however all the rest of message expects
+      ;; headers to be symbols, not strings (eg message-header-format-alist).
+      ;; http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-01/msg00337.html
+      ;; We need to convert any string input, eg from rmail-start-mail.
+      (dolist (h other-headers other-headers)
+ 	(if (stringp (car h)) (setcar h (intern (capitalize (car h)))))))
      yank-action send-actions continue switch-function)
     ;; FIXME: Should return nil if failure.
     t))
@@ -8195,5 +8201,4 @@ Used in `message-simplify-recipients'."
 ;; coding: iso-8859-1
 ;; End:
 
-;; arch-tag: 94b32cac-4504-4b6c-8181-030ebf380ee0
 ;;; message.el ends here