Elven "smiths" use plants to concentrate metal into a usable form -- the bushes that produce copper arrows are canonical. I don't remember if spears are, but I firmly believe spears are produced the same way. Armor can be harvested from trees that concentrate copper in the bark! No doubt, untrustworthy humans sometimes find rare examples of the plants that have "gone wild" and rapaciously loot them. ;)
Uz are sometimes sadly forced to use gangs of slave enlo to dig. But the proper uz use, IMG, is to summon vast Worms of Swems that dig for them, that excrete the usable metals -- the excess silver and bronze being traded away. Of course, depending on what the worm eats, you get some really strange alloys...
An animist culture of some type which uses spirits to mine/create metal might exist as well -- it's a fun concept, at least.
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